


Silver and Gold

by kristsune



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Nonbinary Character, Friendship, Gen, and got some comfort in return, spoilers for rome sidequest, vesseek gives off older sibling vibes, vesseek just wanted to help and comfort ishak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23599945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristsune/pseuds/kristsune
Summary: Ishak just wants to make friends, but finds a new pack instead.
Relationships: Vesseek & Ishak al Tahan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 44





	Silver and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I love these two so much, and if no one is going go give me the content I want, you better believe I'm gonna write it myself. At least partially inspired by sphor-art's beautiful art seen [here.](https://kristsune.tumblr.com/post/614129569700675584/sphor-art-post-rome-au-where-bad-vibe-disease) I hope I did a decent job capturing the two of them.  
> Thank you to everyone who helped me out with this <3 <3
> 
> edit: forgot to add [Panda's art](https://kristsune.tumblr.com/post/614202938387251200/areyouokaypanda-so-i-got-inspired-the-other-day) which was my inspo for Vesseek's appearance.

Ishak was bored out of his mind while stuck in quarantine. There was so little to do, and he couldn’t even go outside and enjoy the weather when it was actually nice, or even go visit his old room at the house. Apparently it had been taken over for war meetings and the like, which  _ would _ be cool, if he could actually get there and see what was happening. But they wouldn’t let him leave, even with someone watching him. There were a few books, but Ishak always found his attention wavering after a few pages. He just couldn’t focus on them, he wanted to be moving. And,  _ and _ , He couldn’t even practice his  _ magic _ , because there was an antimagic field around their room, which was the  _ worst _ .

So instead he tried to make friends with some of the others he had been stuck with. Ed was really nice, but he would always eventually just start talking about Apollo: good deeds this, smite evildoers that. Apollo was a god, but he just couldn’t hold Ishak’s interest. Emeka paced a lot, and always seemed angry, even if he said he wasn’t. Ishak was pretty sure he was just worried about Azu, which he could kind of understand that - he was worried about Hamid after all - but Azu was  _ huge _ , and had  _ so much _ armor, and that axe! Ishak knew she could take care of herself, and he hoped she’d keep an eye on Hamid for him too. Bi Ming seemed to prefer to be alone most of the time. He wasn’t handling losing Sasha well, not to mention the fact that he wasn’t able to go back home, to London. Ishak tried to cheer him up, and it would work sometimes, but not usually for very long. 

Vesseek, on the other hand, immediately took to Ishak. Even before Hamid left, Vesseek kept by his side, and Ishak remembered how tight their grip was on his hand, making sure he wouldn’t be lost. Vesseek had even complimented Ishak on his attempt to escape, which Ishak returned, stating that he wished he could have helped them. 

“There was nothing you could have done. But, if you want, I could show you how to better defend yourself.” Vesseek had a sharp smile on their face.

“Are you like Grizzop? You don’t look like a paladin.” Ishak realized he said the exact wrong thing as soon as it left his mouth. 

Vesseek’s smile fell a little, and turned melancholy, their ears drooping slightly. “No, I’m not a paladin like Grizzop. But we grew up together, at the Church of Artemis. We both had training in basic defense, his was just more… intense.”

Ishak wasn’t sure what that meant, but rather than ask about it, he figured he’d just agree. Even if Vesseek wasn’t a paladin, they certainly gave as much as they got when they had been captured. “I’d love to learn whatever you could teach me. I didn’t like feeling so helpless.”

Veseek’s smile came back full force, fuzzy ears perking back up, and rested a clawed hand on Ishak’s upper arm, “Great! We’ll work on hand to hand combat first, and go from there.” 

Which was how Ishak learned how to fight with his hands, feet, elbows and knees. When to use a well placed forehead, and when teeth (even ones as blunted as his own) could be useful. He learned how to fight clean, and how to fight dirty, and good applications for both. Vesseek taught him how to use his size to his advantage, how to escape someone’s grasp, and how to use speed instead of strength. 

After a couple days of that, Vesseek handed Ishak a long piece of wood, matching the one in their own hands. “Where did you get this?”

Vesseek only smiled and winked, but their left ear flicked a little, like it seemed to when they were pleased about something, and Ishak noticed a chair in the corner that was now down two legs. Ishak started laughing so hard he had to lean onto Vesseek’s shoulder to stay upright. Once Ishak had his breath back, and wiped the tears from his eyes, he found Vesseek giving him a fond smile, rather than the usual sharp one. 

“Come on, I’m going to teach you basic swordplay today.”

All of the practice with Vesseek was both fun  _ and _ hard work. They had as much energy as Ishak did, if not more, which was… nice. The only one who could usually keep up with Ishak was Ismail. Who Ishak was very specifically  _ not _ thinking about, because even though he had only been away for a week, it had been a  _ year and a half  _ for Ismail, knowing he was kidnapped, thinking he was  _ dead _ . Ishak knew he would have been  _ devastated _ if their roles had been reversed. They may get on each other’s nerves occasionally, but they were brothers,  _ twins _ , they were inseparable. Or, well, they  _ had _ been, anyway. 

“Hey, Ishak, you okay?” Vesseek’s expression was full of concern, ears tilted forward, entirely focused on him. 

Ishak realized he couldn’t find his voice, but didn’t know how to express that. How do you tell someone that you suddenly feel like you can’t talk? Like everything is too much? 

“Hey, come on. Let’s take a break.” Vesseek led him over to their pallet and sat them against the wall. 

Vesseek lifted up their arm in an invitation, and Ishak couldn’t find it in himself to say no to that, and leaned against them. Vesseek’s arm felt secure around his shoulders, felt like he was tethered down again. 

“Now, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. We can just sit here like this for as long as you want. But if you do want to talk, at any point, I’m here, yeah?”

Ishak nodded and sat there a while, listening to Vesseek’s fast heartbeat. He wondered idly if it was just that fast because they had been exercising, or if goblin’s hearts always were like that. Maybe he’d ask Vesseek sometime. They didn’t seem the type to get upset if it wasn’t a “proper” question or not. How could he learn anything if he didn’t ask questions? Or figure out which were the correct ones to ask? Not like he got to have many interactions with goblins before. 

Ishak took a deep breath. He was feeling a little better after that internal tangent, and maybe talking about what had been bothering him would help a little. “I just, I miss my brother.”

“Hamid? He just left. He’ll be fine.”

“No. my other brother, my twin, Ismail.” Ishak felt Vesseek nod rather than actually see it. “He’s been alone for over a year and a half. He thought I was dead, probably still does if no one has told him anything. I miss my parents, and other siblings too, I guess. But not like Ismail. I just.. I hope he’s okay.”

Vesseek’s arm tightened briefly around him, “I’m sure he will be. You’ll get to be together again soon, I’m sure of it. And where things might be different, and you’ll have to get used to each other again, but it’ll be alright between you.”

Ishak realized that, yeah, he would get to see Ismail again, and they probably would be okay, but Vesseek might not get that, he just lost Grizzop, and no one knew where he and Sasha went, or if they could get them back. 

“Thank you, Vesseek. I-if you want to talk about anything too, you can.” 

Vesseek took a few deep, shaky breaths. Ishak purposely didn’t look up at them, just in case they were sensitive about that stuff, but reached up and put his hand over the one they had on his shoulder. 

They tightened their grip slightly, “I miss him, and I don’t know if I’ll get to see him again, but I know someday, when we have both passed on from this life, we will be reunited. We’ll meet in the Elysian Fields, and we’ll join the Great Hunt together. Until then, I’ll just keep going, and do what needs to be done.”

They sat there for a few minutes in silence until Ishak felt a question pop into his head that he wanted to ask, and hoped it was the right kind of question, something that might lighten the mood but wouldn’t completely change the subject. Hopefully it would just make it a little easier for Vesseek. He leaned back a little and looked up at them, “I noticed you and Grizzop both have earrings, but yours are much lower, is that because your ears are fuzzy and his aren’t?”

Vesseek chuckled, and looked grateful for the redirection, “Kind of. I just thought they looked better like this. And Grizzop would use his to clip his ears together behind him when he needed to keep them out of the way. I never had that problem.” Vesseek had a bit of a far away look in their eyes, “We pierced each other’s ears when we were still at the temple. It was.. a special moment for us.”

Ishak smiled at them, “I wish I had my ears pierced.”

Vesseek brought their focus back to Ishak, “I could pierce them for you.”

“Really? You’d do that?!”

Vesseek nodded, a sharp smile appearing again, “Yeah.”

“Oh,  _ wicked _ !” 

Ishak wasn’t entirely sure how Vesseek managed to talk Einstein into getting them a needle, and a couple earrings, but they did. They only had a day or so left of being stuck in quarantine, but Ishak was glad they were doing this before they left. It felt like a milestone, like this was the start of something new. 

Vesseek gave Ishak two small holes midway up his left ear, and put in one gold hoop, and one silver one; one each to match Grizzop’s gold, and Veseek’s silver. They hurt a bit, and bled an awful lot, but it wasn’t so bad. Afterwards, Vesseek cleaned them up nicely so they wouldn’t get infected either. 

Ishak reached up and lightly touched the earrings without jostling them too much, “Thank you, Vesseek.”

Veseek smiled at him, “You’re pack now. We take care of each other, keep each other strong.”  
  
Ishak returned the smile.  _ Pack _ . He liked that. It was nice to know he had someone else. Someone who had his back. Someone who he could trust, and they knew they had that trust returned. Ishak may not have known Vesseek for long, but he would protect his new pack any way he could. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come visit me on [tumblr](https://kristsune.tumblr.com/) or on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/Kristsune)


End file.
